Guild Wars 2

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-haters-take-this-wisdom-from-a-dev/first

I respect Robert Hrouda, i think he’s a great dev and thank him for keeping in touch with the community, but it’s kinda sad if this was what anet was thinking

“I consider things like “hundred nades bug” to be OP, where a single attack dos 26k damage in an AOE. Sacrificing so much versatility/defense to be a glass cannon spiker is not OP, it’s a build. That build is just really really good at spiking, and it overpowers almost any other build the thief can bring to deal damage.”

My computer might had lagged, but theif have crit me for 10k with steal and 17k backstabs in WvW.

100nades mechanic was intended, blinding powder + heart seeker is a bug, you leap then damage. not damage then leap, and for some reason this doesn’t remove stealth…

“There was actually a super awesome video of it in WvW, where I watched a single engi take out a group of guardians and warriors by jumping into the middle of them”

Granade barrage had a 150 radius -_- they must have been standing on top of each other making it circumstantial and impossible to replicate on normal gameplay.. there are lots of videos of theif 1v3+ with very litte effort tho.

“Because there is play in thief burst. There is play there, and that spike isn’t a single attack that’s 150% your max HP in damage. Thieves need to execute a series of skills in a row, in which at any time the victim has the potential to mitigate or have some sort of play to save themselves or stop the thief. You just don’t see that with the 100nades stuff, or its a window so narrow that we as devs weren’t happy with the play from both sides of the equation as attacker/defender.”

Might just be me that disagrees, but 100nades had a little bit of work setting up and it was really easy to counter with a condition removal, an evade or simply a dodge.. if people didn’t know how to counter because they weren’t used to fighting engineers is a completely different thing…

Current thief D/P rotation…
Blinding powder > heart-seeker > steal > backstab.. the burst duration from the moment it lands the first attack lands is 1/4s ….

also, the dev admits to being spike down (19k) in a matter of 3-5s in PvP, that translates to a lot more than 26k in WvW.

he also admits to rolling a thief, and learning how to counter them.. but 100nades nerf was based of a screenshot, kinda like Grande nerf was based off damage to an immobile dummie, why not have someone actually play the class to get accurate feedback ?

google.3709:

100nades mechanic was intended, blinding powder + heart seeker is a bug, you leap then damage. not damage then leap, and for some reason this doesn’t remove stealth…

Do you even understand how useless the “leap + smoke” combo effect would be if you got stealthed during the leap and not after the skill did it’s damage? The ANet guy that coded that combo field effect probably saw it and made it specifically apply stealth AFTER the leap finished all it’s animation and damage and not right when it crosses the smoke field on purpose.

Thieves need to execute a series of skills in a row, in which at any time the victim has the potential to mitigate or have some sort of play to save themselves or stop the thief.

Yea we know that series… Heartseeker, Heartseeker, Heartseeker, Heartseeker, Heartseeker, Heartseeker, Heartseeker, …

Seem that way, this build is becoming extremely popular and it’s impossible they haven’t notice this. so this bug was intentionally created.

it’s just really sad, because devs talk among them, and this is probably the mentality around the office.. the way 100nades was described is probably how they assumed it worked, and it doesn’t seem the took the time to get on an engineer, try the build/watch videos or anything. they simply said nerf.. anyone who played the build will tell you that’s not how it worked. if it was so easy

so if they don’t take the time to test game breaking builds like 100nades, imagine what will happen to lesser builds that happen to be able to kill people.

I think it’s because, a 100nader could just immob someone and walk into them to drop the 100nades and that would be hard to counter if you didn’t have any escape skills. Kinda like how thieves are hard to counter if you don’t have any escape skills….. yea…. nevermind.

until last patch you needed a stun breaker and condi removal to counter basilisk venom. also, blocks dont undo stealth, but they did block 100nades and the burst could be reflected back to the user.

1 evade was able to counter 100nades, and then you couldn’t use it again for another 26-30s

thief can blinding powder > heart seek > backstab every 4s lol

Sometimes … yeh soimetimes I wonder whether the devs have anyone in their team that UNDERSTANDS engineer and actually tries the builds.
And sometimes… yeh sometimes I´d like to have a word with some of them.
And sometimes… yeh sometimes I´d like to know where the hell they get those numbers from!
I´m used to such cruel exaggerations from the community…. but from devs!?

Theif and engi are my two classes. 100 nade was Way more lethal then a backstab burst.. I was oneshotting bunkers in spvp as I used a vulnerability stacking variation of 100nade.. Back before the assasin sig was changed, yeah you could see some crazy backstabs but not anymore.. Theif burst is still huge, don’t get me wrong but 100 nades was in a league of its own. Seeing a full health bar instantly going dark red was poetry to my eyes haha… What they didn’t realize is that our power builds are crap now and it’s depressing that I’m forced into conditions dmg only builds.. I understand ppl will have a different opinion but that is mine

Cero.5132:

And sometimes… yeh sometimes I´d like to know where the hell they get those numbers from!
I´m used to such cruel exaggerations from the community…. but from devs!?

From what I’ve heard, the screenshot showing a 26k 100nades was photoshopped. But unfortunately it appeared, Anet accepted it as law, and the nerfbat swung hard.

Well that kind of angers up the blood doesn’t it? In what universe is it harder to roll a thief than an engi? For 100nades to work you had to be inside the enemy char model, if you let them get that close you probably deserve to die. Yes thieves need to get close too, but they have stealth at least. Yes 100nades probably needed a nerf, but removing it completely was pretty lame. And yea, lol at 26k.

stof.9341:

google.3709:

100nades mechanic was intended, blinding powder + heart seeker is a bug, you leap then damage. not damage then leap, and for some reason this doesn’t remove stealth…

Do you even understand how useless the “leap + smoke” combo effect would be if you got stealthed during the leap and not after the skill did it’s damage? The ANet guy that coded that combo field effect probably saw it and made it specifically apply stealth AFTER the leap finished all it’s animation and damage and not right when it crosses the smoke field on purpose.

Then our smoke bomb+BOB combo should do the same.

I think the difference is that during a thief’s combo, you can interrupt him somehow so he can’t do the “perfect combo” rotation to deal out his full damage. Then he stealths out, rinses and repeats. with the old 100nade style, while it does take a lot of skill to set it up perfectly, the combo is basically just 2 skills with a really small window of opportunity. And I think that’s what the devs are trying to balance out. However, it does seem a bit unfair. 100nade rewards players for playing cautiously and carefully, yet punish them (by making the combo not work and be a sitting duck for awhile till it recharges) if they fail. The same is true for thieves, but the punishment is less severe as they can always stealth away.

google.3709:

also, the dev admits to being spike down (19k) in a matter of 3-5s in PvP, that translates to a lot more than 26k in WvW.

he also admits to rolling a thief, and learning how to counter them.. but 100nades nerf was based of a screenshot, kinda like Grande nerf was based off damage to an immobile dummie, why not have someone actually play the class to get accurate feedback ?

Not trying to sound like a kitten, but I think the Engineer community is well aware of the dev’s incompetency when it comes to balancing our class. 100nades was the easiest thing to avoid, as long as you knew how the build works. Similar to how most of us need to role a thief or ele to figure out how to counter them. They only seem to nerf our class the dumbest ways possible, via training dummies and community feedback. If every class was nerfed based on screen shots then the warrior, ele, and necro would be nerfed to oblivion. If every class was nerfed on community feedback the thief and d/d ele wouldn’t exist and the warrior wouldn’t be doing half the dps they are currently achieving. Yet they continue to nerf the Engineer via these methods, and when we question their methods we are made out to be the bad guys. I wish they would just decide what our roll is and build us accordingly, instead of slowly destroying our class so that we meet their “expectations.”

@bomber.1540 and @penatbater.4710

Normally i would agree, but i’ve been trolling with the D/P build. burst last 1/2s and you get a Heart-Seeker, Back stab and steal within 1/2 second which is enough to drop any light/med armor, and if they survive they can heart-seek/backstab every 4s with literally no down time.

And 100nades was lethal not because of the build but because of the player, if the build was as strong as an easy to play as people claim, why weren’t there hundreds of people running it on PvP? in the hands of a good players. anything can be lethal

Well 100 nades was one of the many builds where AOE damage > single target damage. So it was an easy first target for the AOE nerf.

Never mind how ideal the situation would have to be inorder to hit more then 1 person. As the developer pointed out where the Engineer is a certain video bursted a cluster of players. They expressed there distaste for such things. So the 100 nade nerf came at no suprise to me. It is easy to think of balance changes in terms of your class and your build and not the overall health of the game.

Seras.5702:

Cero.5132:

And sometimes… yeh sometimes I´d like to know where the hell they get those numbers from!
I´m used to such cruel exaggerations from the community…. but from devs!?

From what I’ve heard, the screenshot showing a 26k 100nades was photoshopped. But unfortunately it appeared, Anet accepted it as law, and the nerfbat swung hard.

Ah, so that’s the solution! Photoshop up a screenshot of other classes doing impossible levels of damage!

Thief couldn’t kill a Bunker if he landed his full combo with Signet, Engi on the other hand could.

Also Stun breaker would break thief’s combo but for an engi unless you had a teleport like shadowstep, blink, lightning flash, the stun breaker wouldnt work off magnet pull because you character was still in the “air” when the Barrage landed so stun break’s didnt work.

Lets not even go into the fact that Engis have more health and stealth doesn’t really work against reliable AoE, although not every class has access to that.

anet dev has head up kitten and makes stupid comments on forums…..turns out he plays thief……

Whats new?

Robert Hrouda is in a Thief thread and talks about 100nades:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/thief/Thief-haters-take-this-wisdom-from-a-dev/first

I personally find the comparison between Thieves instant non-activation time attacks and the Engineers fully traited, Full GC, Random Spread AoE to be utterly disgusting.
26k dmg in a single AoE, its actually 2 AoEs and you have to be inside the player models for it to work. I don’t know how many times when using the rotation that the KR barrage clustered together and barely hit my target. Do Thieves ever RNG hit to either side of their target????

It only shows me that Devs spend more time playing Thieves than they do Engineers and when they do play they don’t play like Devs but play like teenage kids who want to troll more than anything else.

@Puandro
Elixir S works fine off of Magnet Pull, so any similar skill would work also.
Magnet Pull takes 3 seconds and has an obvious animation which if you dodge anytime before that 3 seconds you will avoid the pull.
Magnet also has the tendancy to not work, half pulls, ghosts pulls, pulling past you, laggy warp pulls, these are all things we have to deal with.
BarrageX2 was full projectile so anything that reflects projectiles could avoid and actually fully counter the burst.

Macro Thieves can initiate their 3 instant skills from up to 1200 range.
And I guarantee 99% of them use a Macro, the skills are instant so the macros are simple.

If it was decided that Anet didn’t like the way KR worked and wanted it to be more utility then fine. But Anet can go spit if they think they can claim it was a balance issue and that Engies had more ganking potential than Thieves.

Don’t worry guys, they buffed rifle turret to deal 476 flat damage every 2 seconds (238 dps) and reduced the Flame turret cooldown (provided you arn’t using deployable turrets) to make up for removing a build. Winning! Class is perfect pack your bags and go home.

Arn’t you thankful ?!

google.3709:

@bomber.1540 and @penatbater.4710

Normally i would agree, but i’ve been trolling with the D/P build. burst last 1/2s and you get a Heart-Seeker, Back stab and steal within 1/2 second which is enough to drop any light/med armor, and if they survive they can heart-seek/backstab every 4s with literally no down time.

And 100nades was lethal not because of the build but because of the player, if the build was as strong as an easy to play as people claim, why weren’t there hundreds of people running it on PvP? in the hands of a good players. anything can be lethal

Where were you when this was hot? There were hundreds of engies almost ALL in 100nade build. But the problem is that it has a reaaaaaaaaaaally steep learning curve and it is very hard to execute it properly (as what has already been mentioned). However, it greatly rewards players who practice and execute it perfectly. It’s kinda like the d/d ele. If you suck at it, you’re gonna have a bad time. But if you perfect it, you can beat any class hands down (refers to the video somewhere about 2 d/d eles taking on ~10 people, killing some of them, and surviving).

Puandro.3245:

Thief couldn’t kill a Bunker if he landed his full combo with Signet, Engi on the other hand could.

With protection down, an 100nade Engineer burst could gib a Clerics amulet bunker Guardian or Elementalist if you landed 16/16 grenades. If protection was up, gibbing was not possible. Vs. a Soldier’s amulet Guardian/Elementalist bunker, randomly gibbing was simply not possible. With protection up, any burst attempts are just cute.

Puandro.3245:

Also Stun breaker would break thief’s combo but for an engi unless you had a teleport like shadowstep, blink, lightning flash, the stun breaker wouldnt work off magnet pull because you character was still in the “air” when the Barrage landed so stun break’s didnt work.

This is just wrong! You are not in the air when barrage landed, it’s a separate CC that happens when you land. Stunbreak once you’ve landed and you will get out of the 1s magnet stun. Balanced stance, Cleansing Fire, Armor of Earth, Save Yourselves, Contemplation of Purity, Stand your Ground, are some common ones that will save you. Practice, and don’t pop your stunbreak in the air.

On live, you’re not going to get 100naded, but you can still break the 1s magnet stun and avoid the subsequent Pry-bar.

Stunbreaking immediately after you are aware you’re being bursted by a thief is too late, the backstab comes in .25 seconds later. It’s possible sometimes to anticipate (unless it’s from stealth, or out of camera view), but it is extremely difficult to successfully avoid a backstab by reacting.

Speaking of reacting, when a Rifle or Toolkit Engineer is bursting, (not necessarily an 100nade Engi of before) there are opportunities out the kitten to avoid it completely. I’d associate it closely with the Warrior Greatsword in terms of telegraphing/predictability. Since an Engineer’s Rifle isn’t in any way comparable in the pressure it can put out alone, rifle/toolkit power builds are in a really dark & obscure place atm. 100nade was the only thing that was ever good about such builds that now lack burst on top of lacking survivability and disengages.

But oh well! Spamming conditions is great fun, too.

Arena Net can’t balance professions. It has been clear since release. Nothing to see here.

So much for being an E-sport.

Cameirus.8407:

anet dev has head up kitten and makes stupid comments on forums…..turns out he plays thief……

Whats new?

Robert Hrouda actually mains Ranger, and didn’t put him on the spot to trash the guy, i actually respect him since he’s one of the most active developers with the community! and that is great, I’m showing this because what he said is probably what everyone talks about believes at Anet

If the developers themselves, don’t play the class, not even they will know how easy it is to counter this build. kill them a few times and they will label OP and nerf the skills. and even if they get on an engi to try the build themselves, its most they did a quick test against a static dummie and decided it needed to be nerfed.

playing the class for 5 minutes, would prevent so many bugs such as “Deployable Turrets”

google.3709:

Cameirus.8407:

anet dev has head up kitten and makes stupid comments on forums…..turns out he plays thief……

Whats new?

Robert Hrouda actually mains Ranger, and didn’t put him on the spot to trash the guy, i actually respect him since he’s one of the most active developers with the community! and that is great, I’m showing this because what he said is probably what everyone talks about believes at Anet

If the developers themselves, don’t play the class, not even they will know how easy it is to counter this build. kill them a few times and they will label OP and nerf the skills. and even if they get on an engi to try the build themselves, its most they did a quick test against a static dummie and decided it needed to be nerfed.

playing the class for 5 minutes, would prevent so many bugs such as “Deployable Turrets”

Whilst I love the game, I’d have more faith in Anet to sort stuff if they gave the impression they actually played the game.

Some of what the devs say is just total BS, and either they have no clue about their own game, or they are just talking crap to troll.
Also, their communication is awful, the lack of dev comments in some profession forums is appalling. I’m not expecting responses to every thread, but the last post from Anet in the guardian forum for instance was over 3 months ago…

I don’t think any rational Engineer would claim that 100 nades was playing the class as intended and shouldn’t have been nerfed. The difference is… show me a rational Thief who thinks the damage they’re able to deliver with little to no skill deserves to be nerfed as well.

that’s one of the problems, pre-launch personally i believed engineers were intended to play with turrets and gadgets, i never expected them to end up being magicians! tossing around magical potions and shooting balls of glue from my pistols

we really don’t know what we’re suppose to do, but they’ve made it clear what we’re NOT suppose to do, which is kill fast or support..

In the first place, why not just make 100nade not hit 100% of the grenades, when the engineer stacks on the target?

Do not see the reason to totally revamp KR due to the glitch or w/e you want to call it.

100Nades was not the reason, it was the excuse to nerf Kit Refinement

Looks like Mister Hrouda and I see the game the same way.

+1, Robert.

i guess you both don’t play engineer then altho with you it was kinda obvious.. meow lol

nope, i dont play engi at all.

Thanks for the confirmation :]

King Stinkeye.3560:

I don’t think any rational Engineer would claim that 100 nades was playing the class as intended and shouldn’t have been nerfed. The difference is… show me a rational Thief who thinks the damage they’re able to deliver with little to no skill deserves to be nerfed as well.

Sums up my thoughts entirely. I still won’t touch SPvP in this game because of the terrible beginners curve of “learning how to survive the amateur thief”

There was a post floating around somewhere, I think it was an AN person who said it around the lines of Thieves are awesome in sPVP and WvW but if you go into tPvP, you won’t see thieves as they are too easy to counter.

That being said, it’s really hard for the people who are trying to learn their class or enjoy the non-serious pvp game, to not get overly frustrated with thieves being able to faceroll and dominate.

On my ranger, I can’t outkite a thief long enough to kill them, there’s just way too many ways to get ontop of my ranger, unless I build specifically to counter thieves, then I am kitten in terms of support and other things which seems counter logic.

Now on my engineer….I just blow them to hell with grenades before they can kill me, abusing HGH to hell while having 11+ stacks of might because it is the only way I can effectively counter thief damage as you can’t peel them enough.

As for the overall balance, there’s a ton of useless skills in the game, which need their place.

For example turrets would be amazing for holding points, but they lack the damage, health and AI to do the job. Possbility to have the turret automatically fire off of the target the engineer is targeting, would be helpful to add more DPS to a specific target, instead of the turret just shooting the same person forever, while the engineer switches off to someone else.

Also having the turrets always provide 1 condition on its normal attack, while its active makes kind of an overcharge which makes it shoot a whole lot faster, but then needs to reload for a few seconds (currently 50% attack speed, why not 100%-150% then 2-3 seconds before it returns to normal firing speed). Also turrets having a % of the engineer’s health might make them last longer, as they are pretty flimsy and don’t add enough significant threat such as mesmer illusions which are scary if you ignore them.

I can’t say much for overall balance as I haven’t been playing long but from where I am sitting the main point of engineer is to have fun toys to bring to the party, each with their uses.

Ranger for example has a different pet, to bring something different. Need a pet for CC? Being a canine. Need regen? There’s a wolf for that. Need DPS? Bring a cat. Pet choice doesn’t take much away from you, as you can have 1 active, 1 standby which allows you to bring a wolf for regen, and a canine for CC, switch out about as often as you can swap weapons in combat.

So currently we have a few different “tools” such as:
Flamethrower – should be the up close and personal touch, with added toughness/health to survive in a close quarters battle because if you are insanely close to them, chances are you’ll get hit a lot more than if you are standing way back at max range
Bomb kit – many of these should be proximity/remote detonation like ranger traps, timed takes way too much setup and are way too easy to get away from, and should be a lot more threatning if you hit it as currently, I don’t see anyone using this
Grenade kit – everybody’s favorite high explosive good time, good for single target, groups, holding points, and dealing with problem people
Tool Wrench – should be used to bolster your turrets and add some defensive things for holding points. It already does give you the ability to heal your turrets which is nice, also might be fun to add extra damage buff to them or something

This is pretty much the problem I see currently, there’s a whole ton of, hey this is broken let’s abuse this for a while because it is strong in like every situation, and less of I want to do X what builds can work with that. Or I like Y what can I do with it.